Don’t bank on us say hard-up cops

A new 'hole in the wall' feature at a Natwest branch after thieves ripped out the cash machine using

They are better armed than us and will ram our family saloon cars off the road in an instant.

Anonymous blogger, inspectorgadget

The inspector claims budget cuts mean officers are not equipped to deal with “hardened” criminals who use diggers to steal ATMs.

He said smash-and-grab raids are on the rise and are carried out by heavily-armed “traveller” gangs who are not afraid of the police.

In his anonymous blog, inspectorgadget, he said: “If an insomniac wandering about in the early hours sees such a raid and calls it in we have to respond.

“When we eventually arrive, single crewed or, if we are lucky, double crewed, if the offenders are still there or if we come across the convoy making off we can expect to be met with extreme violence by at least eight hardened criminals.

“They are better armed than us and will ram our family saloon cars off the road in an instant.”

He admitted that in some parts of the country police forces are so short of officers that “thieves rule the streets”.

He added: “If the police are caught in the open they will be met with baseball bats, iron bars and firearms. They will also be heavily outnumbered.

“Even if we manage to get one of the county’s very few police dogs to respond, the dogs can be stabbed or shot and the handlers beaten half to death. This has happened.

“With our tiny numbers of police available for such a huge area, our pathetically underpowered vehicles and our uniquely unarmed status, the thieves rule this country at night now, not us.”

There has been a spate of cash machine thefts across the country in the past year, mostly in rural areas.

The officer says more cash and resources are needed to help tackle the problem.

He added: “We used to have a specialist unit, armed officers with detectives, suitable vehicles and a decent intelligence team but this was disbanded to save money.”